My biggest problem is with circ as a cosmetic thing for a whole lot of reasons (not least which is that any surgery performed in hospitals is asking for MRSA to take up residence in the wound), and if this became popular, gah, would more docs encourage circ so they could sell the products? *shudder*
I found it odd that the women interviewed were bothered by the fact that they couldn't see results right away. Here, were are giving you a virtually painless effort-free permanent way to improve your face, but it may take a couple months to kick in. So? Wtf?
I'm torn on the source for the cells. I'm very anti-circ, but at the same time that tissue is there. And it's not like they are just sticking that tissue on womens' faces. They're extracting and culturing very specific cells from it. I'm not sure I would worry too much about doctors pushing circ for that reason, but I would worry about parents latching onto it as a legitimate justification for circ. I wonder why they can't just keep culturing the stocks of ceolls they have, much like they do with stem cells, instead of continously harvesting more?
I'm torn on the source for the cells. I'm very anti-circ, but at the same time that tissue is there.
It is, but at the same time I get really bad vibes from it. It's a gross exaggeration for sure, but I keep flashing back to how the Nazis took skin from Holocaust victims for their grafting experiments because hey, the tissue was there.
I'm not sure I would worry too much about doctors pushing circ for that reason, but I would worry about parents latching onto it as a legitimate justification for circ.
Good point. If the docs aren't getting paid for it, they're not likely pushing it. (Why, yes, I'm cynical towards doctors. I'm a nurse, so it's likely a defence mechanism). *g*
It's a gross exaggeration for sure, but I keep flashing back to how the Nazis took skin from Holocaust victims for their grafting experiments because hey, the tissue was there.
Gross exaggeration? Yep. I love ya, girl, but it's also shite.
I wonder why they can't just keep culturing the stocks of ceolls they have, much like they do with stem cells, instead of continously harvesting more?
They die. Differentiated and partially differentiated cells can only grow for so long, especially in vitro, where they don't receive the proper paracrine signals from other cells and tissues (which change the nature of the cells anyway). The only immortal culture lines are those that are inherently cancerous, or fused to cancer cells. Tissue cultures can't be grown indefinitely.
*shrugs* The material is there. If it can be used to make someone feel better about themselves, better that than just toss it out. Would I do it? Under the right circumstances, sure.
I don't really see people who weren't otherwise going to have their sons circumsized making that decision because the tissue donation could be used in cosmetic surgery. That'd be a secondary consideration, and one that most people wouldn't be made aware of.
I guess it wouldn't be an issue unless the parents were paid for it (and at least according to the dubious Daily Mail article, they aren't). I can see there being a line in the consent form about it (in small print, of course), although if I were okay with my kid being cut I suppose I wouldn't care where the skin went.
Cosmetic circumcision is a much bigger issue here than in Canada (in 2005 56% of babies born in U.S. hospitals were cut, compared to 9.2% in Canada). From what I've read the practice is almost unheard of in Europe except for religous reason. The good news is the U.S. and Canadian rates have both been steadily going down, thanks to better education and informed consent and all that.
If they were paid, it wouldn't be a donation, it'd be sale of human tissue, which is a whole 'nother ballgame.
People keep noting that it's less popular here, and yet I know very few men who are not circumsized? Not that I've personally checked, but at least in my particular... demographic, it's more common than not. Somehow I bet that if they took regional numbers Southern Ontario would be comparable to the US, especially from the 50s to the 80s.
Yeah, but how many infants/toddlers do you know who are? The stats reflect the percentage of babies cut in a given year (in this case, 2005, which is the most recent number I can find). The rate's gone down a LOT since the seventies and eighties.
From what I've been reading, the highest percentage was in PEI and the lowest in NL (it's almost zero there). Circumcision is also not covered by Medicare in Ontario, which probably has a lot to do with the declining rate.
From what I've read the practice is almost unheard of in Europe except for religous reason.
Yeah, that's true, at least in Sweden. I've never even seen a circumcised penis, actually. I remember being really surprised when I learned that it was common in the US.
It's like something out of a science fiction novel... or Fight Club.
Only-- maybe I'm mean here, and unfair, but what right do people have to go chopping bits off their children and then donating them to someone else? Even if that someone else is the medical industry...? Hwo would it be if I went, "Hmmm, I'm gonna have my six year old chucked under surgery so we can give part of his liver to someone else..." Um... that just screams wrong, and lack of respect for the kid in question.
I'm really not down with circumcising people anyway (until they're old enough to choose it for themselves), I'll admit, but... the "excess foreskins"? We're talking parts of people who had no say in getting them removed being... a fucking industry. (If this stuff works as well as they say it does, there's money to be made in it...)
It makes me furious because of the whole lack of respect for vulnerable little people stuff.
On a broader scale, I'm thinking, "Now we're gonna see a push from doctors for people to circumsize their children, aren't we?" If the medical profession can make money out of it...
Only-- maybe I'm mean here, and unfair, but what right do people have to go chopping bits off their children and then donating them to someone else?
Even more, what right do people have to go chopping bits off their children period? And why do U.S. insurance companies cover it? Seriously, if insurance stopped paying for it, the circ rate would plummet.
On a broader scale, I'm thinking, "Now we're gonna see a push from doctors for people to circumsize their children, aren't we?" If the medical profession can make money out of it...
If docs can figure a way to make money from it, it'll be pushed ad nauseum. Just look at the ridiculous rate of C-sections in the US, where every surgery costs money. Docs get paid more for it, so they rec it constantly.
I hope they will cover plastic surgery then. At least when someone's getting a boob job or whatever, then they're actually consenting to it...
The money-making thing...? Yeah. I'm seriously cynical about the medical industry (and drug companies, to be honest, too). It all looks like a big scam being sold to us from this angle. *sighs*
Do poor women get encouraged to get C-sections in the States? Over here, coz technically we have "free healthcare," C-sections seem to be not encouraged so much amongst poor people, but they're there if needed, from what I've seen and heard. I did the freebee hospital birth-centre birth thing with my kids, and C-sections weren't really looked at as anything more than a last resort. That said, they weren't stingy on the drugs and the gas-- I could have had stuff if I'd wanted it. (I just didn't have time with Lewis, and with Neo, I didn't want anything else after the gas made me feel like crap.)
Yeah. It's getting better--fewer companies are doing it and more states are dropping it from Medicaid, but it definitely is still covered all over the place.
According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, in 2005 "About 60 percent of circumcisions were billed to private insurance, 31 percent to Medicaid, nearly 3 percent to other public programs and about 4 percent were uninsured."
I'm seriously cynical about the medical industry (and drug companies, to be honest, too).
Pharmaceutical companies are legal drug dealers. Over here it's even legal for prescription meds to be advertised on TV. And the drug companies wine and dine the docs to death to get them to use their latest wonder drug. Grr.
Do poor women get encouraged to get C-sections in the States?
Poor women have the lowest C-section rate in the country, probably because Medicaid doesn't want to pay for it. It's like, the single advantage poor women have in the birth department, because they only get sectioned if they need it.
Fortunately, most insurance companies don't cover elective Caesareans, which are all the rage around here.
Well, I have to tell you, I have no problem with this, unless it takes these cells away from their originally created use, which is making Transyte(R), a product used to graft burns rather than harvest donor skin from the burn victim. I've only seen it used once (it is $1000+ per square foot sheet), and we only used it because it was about to expire, but man, it worked beautifully on a 2 degree burn. In this use, yeah, it is for cosmesis, but it is good to see that they are charging the right price for the procedure.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 07:49 pm (UTC)As we say England - Yeah but it's The Daily Mail.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 07:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 08:07 pm (UTC)it's a steady job but he wants to be a paperback writer...
Date: 2008-11-17 08:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 08:01 pm (UTC)Not to mention amused. If you inject them into your nose, would you get a Pinocchio effect every time you used a tissue to clean your boogers?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 08:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 09:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 08:52 pm (UTC)I'm torn on the source for the cells. I'm very anti-circ, but at the same time that tissue is there. And it's not like they are just sticking that tissue on womens' faces. They're extracting and culturing very specific cells from it. I'm not sure I would worry too much about doctors pushing circ for that reason, but I would worry about parents latching onto it as a legitimate justification for circ. I wonder why they can't just keep culturing the stocks of ceolls they have, much like they do with stem cells, instead of continously harvesting more?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 09:23 pm (UTC)It is, but at the same time I get really bad vibes from it. It's a gross exaggeration for sure, but I keep flashing back to how the Nazis took skin from Holocaust victims for their grafting experiments because hey, the tissue was there.
I'm not sure I would worry too much about doctors pushing circ for that reason, but I would worry about parents latching onto it as a legitimate justification for circ.
Good point. If the docs aren't getting paid for it, they're not likely pushing it. (Why, yes, I'm cynical towards doctors. I'm a nurse, so it's likely a defence mechanism). *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 09:39 pm (UTC)Gross exaggeration? Yep. I love ya, girl, but it's also shite.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 11:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 09:35 pm (UTC)They die. Differentiated and partially differentiated cells can only grow for so long, especially in vitro, where they don't receive the proper paracrine signals from other cells and tissues (which change the nature of the cells anyway). The only immortal culture lines are those that are inherently cancerous, or fused to cancer cells. Tissue cultures can't be grown indefinitely.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 11:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 09:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 09:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 11:42 pm (UTC)Cosmetic circumcision is a much bigger issue here than in Canada (in 2005 56% of babies born in U.S. hospitals were cut, compared to 9.2% in Canada). From what I've read the practice is almost unheard of in Europe except for religous reason. The good news is the U.S. and Canadian rates have both been steadily going down, thanks to better education and informed consent and all that.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 11:51 pm (UTC)People keep noting that it's less popular here, and yet I know very few men who are not circumsized? Not that I've personally checked, but at least in my particular... demographic, it's more common than not. Somehow I bet that if they took regional numbers Southern Ontario would be comparable to the US, especially from the 50s to the 80s.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-18 12:27 am (UTC)From what I've been reading, the highest percentage was in PEI and the lowest in NL (it's almost zero there). Circumcision is also not covered by Medicare in Ontario, which probably has a lot to do with the declining rate.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-18 06:56 am (UTC)Yeah, that's true, at least in Sweden. I've never even seen a circumcised penis, actually. I remember being really surprised when I learned that it was common in the US.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 10:19 pm (UTC)Only-- maybe I'm mean here, and unfair, but what right do people have to go chopping bits off their children and then donating them to someone else? Even if that someone else is the medical industry...? Hwo would it be if I went, "Hmmm, I'm gonna have my six year old chucked under surgery so we can give part of his liver to someone else..." Um... that just screams wrong, and lack of respect for the kid in question.
I'm really not down with circumcising people anyway (until they're old enough to choose it for themselves), I'll admit, but... the "excess foreskins"? We're talking parts of people who had no say in getting them removed being... a fucking industry. (If this stuff works as well as they say it does, there's money to be made in it...)
It makes me furious because of the whole lack of respect for vulnerable little people stuff.
On a broader scale, I'm thinking, "Now we're gonna see a push from doctors for people to circumsize their children, aren't we?" If the medical profession can make money out of it...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-17 11:50 pm (UTC)Even more, what right do people have to go chopping bits off their children period? And why do U.S. insurance companies cover it? Seriously, if insurance stopped paying for it, the circ rate would plummet.
On a broader scale, I'm thinking, "Now we're gonna see a push from doctors for people to circumsize their children, aren't we?" If the medical profession can make money out of it...
If docs can figure a way to make money from it, it'll be pushed ad nauseum. Just look at the ridiculous rate of C-sections in the US, where every surgery costs money. Docs get paid more for it, so they rec it constantly.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-18 12:04 am (UTC)WHAT!!? I totally didn't realise that.
I hope they will cover plastic surgery then. At least when someone's getting a boob job or whatever, then they're actually consenting to it...
The money-making thing...? Yeah. I'm seriously cynical about the medical industry (and drug companies, to be honest, too). It all looks like a big scam being sold to us from this angle. *sighs*
Do poor women get encouraged to get C-sections in the States? Over here, coz technically we have "free healthcare," C-sections seem to be not encouraged so much amongst poor people, but they're there if needed, from what I've seen and heard. I did the freebee hospital birth-centre birth thing with my kids, and C-sections weren't really looked at as anything more than a last resort. That said, they weren't stingy on the drugs and the gas-- I could have had stuff if I'd wanted it. (I just didn't have time with Lewis, and with Neo, I didn't want anything else after the gas made me feel like crap.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-18 12:52 am (UTC)Yeah. It's getting better--fewer companies are doing it and more states are dropping it from Medicaid, but it definitely is still covered all over the place.
According to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, in 2005 "About 60 percent of circumcisions were billed to private insurance, 31 percent to Medicaid, nearly 3 percent to other public programs and about 4 percent were uninsured."
I'm seriously cynical about the medical industry (and drug companies, to be honest, too).
Pharmaceutical companies are legal drug dealers. Over here it's even legal for prescription meds to be advertised on TV. And the drug companies wine and dine the docs to death to get them to use their latest wonder drug. Grr.
Do poor women get encouraged to get C-sections in the States?
Poor women have the lowest C-section rate in the country, probably because Medicaid doesn't want to pay for it. It's like, the single advantage poor women have in the birth department, because they only get sectioned if they need it.
Fortunately, most insurance companies don't cover elective Caesareans, which are all the rage around here.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-19 01:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-19 10:06 pm (UTC)